


Only Gonna Do You Wrong

by Lady_in_Red



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Unresolved Sexual Tension, post 1.08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 15:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8719564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/pseuds/Lady_in_Red
Summary: Mike tries to convince himself he's made the right decision after giving Oscar permission to talk to the Cubs about a trade. Post 1.08.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in a new fandom in over three years, so forgive me if I'm a bit rusty with characters who swing bats instead of swords. 
> 
> Title is from "Shots" by Imagine Dragons.

They have fucking nicknames. 

Out of everything going on, that’s the last thing that should bother him. He should be pleased. Duarte pulls his diva bullshit less since he started following Baker around. He talks to the press, he does the work (at least with her, although Sonny’s still bitching about the kid), and he hasn’t flipped a bat since San Francisco. 

But Mike still wants to put Duarte through a wall every time he calls Ginny ‘Mami.’ From the way she reacts, Baker clearly has no clue her new catcher is basically calling her ‘baby’ in front of the whole team. She calls  _ him  _ ‘Livan,’ or occasionally ‘Papi.’ And Mike? He’s still ‘old man.’ That doesn’t feel like a joke anymore. Now it just reminds him that she had his poster on her wall when she was a gawky Little Leaguer. He’ll have to ask Ross if it stung when the Cubs started calling him Grandpa. 

Mike blows off dinner at Blip’s after the game. Ginny and her brother will be there, and Mike’s not in the mood to play fifth wheel. Nor is he ready to tell Blip (or Baker) about Chicago. He goes home with takeout and a six-pack, drinks the first beer while he figures how to program Google Alerts for himself and Theo Epstein, the man in charge in Chicago. Amelia’s assistant showed him how it worked weeks ago, but never got around to doing it. 

Chicago is a long shot. They’ve already got a catcher on the verge of retirement, but Ross mostly catches Lester these days. Montero’s not as good a hitter as Mike, and Contreras has a hell of an arm, but he doesn’t know the game half as well as Mike does. At least the Cubs won’t want him replacing Rizzo at first base.

Chicago’s going to the postseason. With their record, it’s damn near certain. And Mike wants a ring. He wants to heft a trophy, ride in a damn victory parade with ticker tape and screaming fans. The goat, the curse—fuck them. He’ll take his chances if the Cubs will take him. He could have allowed more teams, guaranteed his trade, but this is Mike’s moonshot. If he's leaving, it better damn well get him deep into October. 

He packs a bag, just to make it feel real. He doesn’t need much. After the first few times his mom picked him up from school and they left town without going home, he learned.   

Even after fifteen years here, he could pack up and go in under an hour, including saying his goodbyes. Rachel got all their friends in the divorce, and soon she’ll be married to another man. Blip will understand. He can handle the dimpled Wonder Twins. And Mike will get used to seeing Arrieta’s bearded mug on the mound. His ass isn’t nearly as nice, but at least his fastballs break 90. 

Mike sets his bag by the door, channel surfs for hours and drinks half the six-pack without even noticing. His phone vibrates on the couch beside him, ignored other than a quick glance each time it buzzes.

Bleacher Report posts that Mike is looking to get out of San Diego. Blip asks him to tell Ginny before she hears it from someone else. And Ginny wants to know why his old man knees didn’t know it was going to rain. Any other day that would make him smile. Now it makes him crack open a fourth beer.

His fingers itch to pick up the phone, text her back. Which is a terrible idea. Ginny’s already under too much pressure. She doesn’t need his garbage piled on hers. 

He needs to get out of San Diego. The Padres will always be his team, he’s stupidly loyal that way, but this is how the game works. He’s seen a hundred guys come and go in the Padres clubhouse. At least in Chicago they won’t mock the beard.

 

* * *

 

Going to her hotel is a last-minute decision, when he’s pulling into the stadium an hour earlier than usual. He couldn’t sleep, and sitting around his house is just making him restless.

It’s ridiculous that Baker’s still living here, but she said that getting an apartment would be tempting fate. Three months, and she’s still afraid of being sent back down. Mike lived out of boxes his entire first season. At twenty, he felt like it could all disappear in an instant. At thirty-six, he knows it can. 

He should’ve waited for her at the stadium. Mike talks a good game about treating Ginny like one of the guys. None of the other guys is getting an early morning visit at home to break this news. Assuming she didn’t hear about it last night. Blip wasn’t going to tell her, but Mike’s not sure if Amelia would do it or wait for him. Aside from the photo shoot, Amelia has been radio silent with Mike. He’s starting to wonder if she was more invested in their relationship than he thought. 

Mike stops in the middle of the hall, a few doors down from her room, and pulls out his phone. The least he can do is give her a head’s up that he’s coming. This is something they don't do. She's never been to his house, and he's never been here. It's early yet, she could open the door in whatever she wears to sleep. Doesn't matter that she's more likely to favor T-shirts than lingerie, a sleep-tousled Ginny Baker pushes his buttons. Something about her eyes, soft and warm without the fierceness she wears like armor, her curls loose around her face. She’s fallen asleep leaning against him on the bus more than once, an intimacy she reserves solely for him and Blip. Between that and the late night phone calls, Mike shouldn’t have been so surprised to hear himself spilling his guts in front of Omar and Blip.

The photo shoot didn’t help. Mike did not need a reminder that his rookie has a knockout body to go along with her killer screwball. He sees her in skintight workout gear as often as he sees her in uniform. He shouldn’t be checking out her legs while she stretches, and he damn sure shouldn’t be paying close enough attention to know what song she’s massacring while she does it. 

Mike is still slowly tapping out a text when her door opens. For a second, he wonders if he’s going to catch some guy doing the walk of shame out of Ginny’s room. But it’s a middle-aged woman, her eyes down on her phone, still talking to Ginny. “—Thursday unless you need to talk sooner.”

“Thanks, Doc.” Ginny sounds comfortable with her, whoever she is.

The woman looks up and spots Mike. She glances back toward Ginny and closes the door firmly before approaching. “Mike Lawson,” she says, certain but without the smile that would mark her as a fan. 

Mike nods, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Just stopping by to talk to Baker.”

Now the woman offers a small smile, approving, and he wonders what kind of doctor this is. The kind that makes house calls before 8 a.m. The kind whose work requires follow-up appointments. Interesting, and not in a good way. 

“It’s good to meet you.” It doesn’t sound like a courtesy, more like she’s confirmed something. “And she’s wrong, by the way. The beard does not look like a squirrel is attacking your face.”

Mike laughs, sudden and loud. He likes this woman. “Thanks,” he offers awkwardly, as she slips past him and walks away.

Ginny’s door opens, and her head pokes out. Her hair is damp. “Lawson?” Her brow furrows, a spark of uncertainty in her eyes.

This is a bad idea. Mike’s been blowing hot and cold with her lately, he knows that. Blaming her for the way this season has shaken out. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t Duarte, either, but the Cuban is a much easier target. Lashing out at Ginny makes him feel like he kicked Bambi. 

He gestures toward her door. “Can I come in?” 

The flicker of alarm on her face is quickly masked, a careless shrug of her bare shoulders. “Sure.” Baker has mastered the sort of swaggering bravado that shouldn’t work with that face, but it does. Probably the only reason she wasn’t eaten alive by her teammates in Texas. 

Mike is barely inside, distracted by how utterly impersonal her suite is, when she asks, “Are you checking up on me?” 

Mike’s attention snaps to her, sitting stiffly on a bar stool in her compression tank and leggings. “What? No.” 

She crosses her arms, shakes her head a little. “Right. You don’t come here for three months, and you happen to show up just as Dr. Barton is leaving.”

“Are you hurt?” His voice is sharper than he’d intended.

Baker rolls her eyes. “Are you seriously pretending you don’t know management is making me see a shrink?” 

Shit. They really are pushing him out. A month ago, Oscar or Al would have told him. Hell, he would have been in the meeting. “No, Baker, I didn't know.” 

He sighs heavily, eyes her more closely. Baker rarely looks relaxed, always focused on something: working out, mastering a new pitch, reviewing game tape, running whatever publicity gauntlet Amelia has booked that week. He used to call her in the evenings sometimes, listen to her spin out her over-the-top fears that every batter in the league had her number by now, and then he’d calm her down, distract her by picking on her taste in music or woeful knowledge of 80s movies. Right now she’s wound up and prickly and he would kill to just chuck this whole conversation and suggest she come over tonight and watch a movie. But they don’t do things like that, for reasons Mike doesn’t want to examine right now.

“Please. Amelia or Al sent you,” she scoffs.

Mike shakes his head. “Amelia’s not talking to me, and apparently Al didn’t think I needed to know.” He takes a hesitant step toward her. Baker has so much on her shoulders, but he’s been too wrapped up in his own problems to see if she was in trouble. Sure, she went a little wild in LA; he did far worse at twenty-three. “Did something happen?”

Ginny stalks away from him, snatching her jacket off the counter and shrugging into it. “I lost it a little bit. After the Nike party.” She turns abruptly, eyes narrowed, her head cocked like she can’t quite figure him out. “You’re my captain. Why wouldn’t they tell you?”

That’s as good an opening as he is going to get. “I’ve been put on waivers. Ownership wants me gone.”

All the suspicion and irritation drops from her face, her eyes gone wide. “But you  _ are  _ the Padres.”

He smiles, but it feels all wrong. God, she’s young. “I’m a $16 million salary with bad knees, rookie.”

“But they can't force you. You'll stay, we’re only five games out—”

“I told Oscar I'd talk to Chicago.” He has to say it before he chickens out, before that look of betrayal on her face sends him running to Oscar to call it all off.

“Chicago.” She slumps onto the couch, drops her face into her hands. “You're leaving us?”

Worse than hearing that tremble in Ginny’s voice is knowing he caused it. Knowing she trusts him enough to even show him that she’s hurt. “I’m walking out before they kick me out, Baker. While I can still make this time count.”

Fire flashes in her eyes. Her jaw sets, stubborn as hell. He’s going to miss that face. “You just want a ring.”

He laughs, because he’s also going to miss her certainty, her insistence that they can do anything if they just play harder. After all, it got her farther than any other woman in baseball history. “So do you. And yeah, if my choice is playing second fiddle to Duarte until my contract runs out, or winning a championship in a town that’s starving for it even more than San Diego, with a bunch of guys I can respect—even if they’re not my team, my town—hell yes, rookie, I’ll take the shot.”

Ginny just stares at him, longer than he can stand, anger and hurt and disbelief in her dark eyes, and then she turns away. She can’t understand how the foundation he spent more than a decade laying turned to sand under his feet, faster than he ever thought possible. Rachel gone. His team gone. And what does he have left? Maybe another 50 games, if he’s lucky. One more shot behind the desk if he begs Amelia’s help. And if that fails, he has nothing. An empty house, a pile of money (half what he had before the divorce), and the rest of his life stretching out in front of him while the few he counts as friends move on without him. 

“Baker, look at me.” Mike deliberately uses his game voice, the one that she always listens to, even if she ultimately disagrees. He waits until she looks, tries to ignore the way her lower lip trembles. “Don’t repeat my mistakes. Don’t make the game your life.”

Ginny surges to her feet, her eyes blazing. “You’re abandoning us, and you want to give me career advice?” She laughs, broken and brittle. “Sonny tried to warn me, but no, I told him you wouldn’t do that to us. I’m an idiot.”

She snatches up her headphones and backpack, eager to get out, get away. She looks right past him as she heads for the door.   

“Ginny.” 

She spins back to face him, anger rolling off her and suddenly Mike remembers her charging the mound, shoving Trevor Davis and yelling in his face. “Maybe you  _ should  _ go. You’re supposed to be our captain. If you’re not going to fight for us, we’re better off without you.”

Because he knows she’s right, Mike lets her go.


End file.
